Stupid ??: 3D Models on the Mac

I'm looking for a program to do 3D models of mechanical designs. I'm a novice at modeling. I'm simply trying to take an idea for a device and represent it as a 3D model. Well, maybe not so simple . Anyway, I know there's a bunch of 3D folks out here. Any recommendations? Ease of use and price are most important. For OS X, of course.

There's Carrara 3D Basics for $99. The company's website is at http://www.eovia.com/. This company bought both Ray Dream and Infini-D, which had quite a following at one time.

You can get Maya Personal Learning Edition as a free download and with various lessons on CD-ROM for reasonable prices. However, the output is watermarked since their standard version runs into the thousands.

I personally like Hash's Animation Master. It runs on OS9, Windows (in case you are collaborating with a Windows person), and is shortly going into Beta for OSX. It has a nice modeler that is spline and patch based...i.e. no polygons to worry about, thus smaller model files, and works well for both mechanical and organic models. It has an excellent animation feature set, and tools that are typically found in higher end (Maya) packages, and sometimes, tools the big boys don't have yet (AM was the first to offer non-linear animation and reusable actions).
The renderer is pretty sweet too, and no offers photon mapping. Plus, most everything you need is built in and you don't have to buy plugins for cool fx and stuff. And, there are a lot of FREE plugins from the AM community, plus an awesome email List service.
AM is used in movies, videogames (Tak and the Power of JuJu), commercials, TV shows, music videos, and so on.
All this for $199 bucks, and that installer CD works on both platforms.
Check it out at http://www.hash.com

Depends on how long long you've been doing 3D. I don't know much about the Carrara, but for a beginner, AM has a semi-steep learning curve, but the results are way worth it. For a person who has been doing 3D in another app, then the hardest part of AM is learning how to model differently, since you aren't using polygons.

But, that said, I've seen lots of great work from novices and beginners who have gone the AM way.

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.